I made a video demonstrating the animation i'm trying to accomplish: Here it is.

Notice the video illustrates the action as it would be seen from the side. The camera icon represents the user's POV. It's basically a simulation of a translation among the Z-axis accomplished though a scale transform, with a simultaneous independent two-step 3D rotation happening along the X axis.

A single keyframe animation

Since you have three very good keyframes the code to animate between the three keyframes would be easy to read and understand. You would possibly lose some of the control if you wanted to change the timing of the scaling separate from that of the rotating.

This looks great. I'll try it tomorrow and let you know how it goes. Thanks a lot and happy holidays!
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radutzanDec 25 '12 at 5:41

I couldn't wait, and it's already technically tomorrow here, so I tried it, and it works great! I went with the first one, because it keeps the timing functions separate between the two transforms. Thank you so much!
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radutzanDec 25 '12 at 6:18